“Lazy” almost always has a negative connotation, but for the sake of this article, I am thinking of lazy in the most positive light--the enviable position of having time on your hands to do what you want because of good planning or strong prioritization or smart delegation or practical creativity. One of our “lazy” sons was a master of “getting out of work” in his youth by figuring out the easiest (and often fastest) way to accomplish chores--these are executive traits not to be admonished, but to be admired! Furthermore, a U.S. president was termed lazy (Ronald Reagan), yet many would say that he was one of the most successful presidents (forget about your political leanings) in accomplishing his agenda. With this background in mind, there is something to be said for accomplishing what one wants in eight hours instead of 12. Don’t you think?

Here are a few lessons from lazy leaders that we might all benefit from:

Focus on the Crop, Not the Plow

A natural state of affairs (particularly for those of us who are engineers) is to get caught up in methods and procedures of “how things are done.” This is all well and good when specific projects are necessary to mend procedures, streamline processes, or fix a bad model. You’ll get better results with less effort, however, if you quit micromanaging the tilling and the planting, and just monitor the desired harvest yield. Besides, if you have the right people on your crew, they can do the work better than you anyway. Give your people clear, aggressive goals and the tools to accomplish them. Then get out of the way. This is the first step toward your move to laziness.

Unbridle Your Horses

Every organization (hopefully) has a few stars that you depend on. Let me guess--you reward these top players by assigning them the toughest problems you have. Correct? If so, then you are missing a huge opportunity! To make the biggest gains (and, thus, make your life easier), challenge your mid-level performers to demonstrate their capability by giving them the organization’s problems to fix. Reward your horses by letting them take on the big opportunities that may lead to significant revenue opportunities or create competitive barriers. By doing so, you will unleash their true potential by letting them demonstrate their leadership. In addition, it will free you up for other things--your “one big thing.”

One Big Thing at a Time

Let’s be brutally honest. Except for the occasional genius (e.g., DaVinci, Jefferson), the more things one tries to do, the lower the quality of all attempts. The best organizations limit their critical issues to three, and the best leaders limit their personal focus to one--one area where they can personally contribute the most to their organization, and they stick with this one area for a quarter or for a year…whatever it takes to accomplish it. Then and only then do they take stock, re-evaluate, and come up with one new mission upon which to focus. This is the method of Jack Welch, and he seemed to do OK at GE. This allows you to target all your talents toward what will produce the greatest potential benefit to you, your team, and your organization. It removes the pressure of diversion and the mending and patching that so often occurs with multi-tasking and multi-goaling. A nice reward of this method is time to think and even a little time left over for play.

So learn from lazy leaders by clearing the clutter, delegating your diversions, and targeting your time. You will be very satisfied with the results.

Tags: leadership

“Looking back over my career, I have never made a tough change that I haven’t wished I had made a year or so earlier.” This confession* comes from Andrew Grove, chairman of Intel and a person who has faced a tough problem or two over his career. Just about all of us, when facing tough decisions, can well relate--it is much more inviting to hesitate and procrastinate than make a choice that you just don’t want to deal with.

In retrospect, it is fairly easy (although not always comfortable) to look back upon major decisions and discover that there was plenty of information available early on to justify/confirm/demand the decision. In fact, in almost all cases of importance it is not a lack of cost-benefit justification that slows or stalls big decision making, it is the defenders of the status quo, Fear and Dread.

Here is an example: Think about senior management in a product company (maybe your company) who are faced with overwhelming data supporting the business need to transition from product-centric to services-led. Yet behind these logical facts are lingering feelings of unease that stall moving ahead. Fear is one of those feelings, because the company’s future (and that of the executives) may be at risk if things go wrong. Also, executives may question their ability to lead and their organization’s ability to implement the necessary transition. They probably also feel Dread when anticipating all the hassle (challenging the organizational culture and dealing with individual personalities) involved in bringing about a change of this magnitude. Is it any wonder that more meetings are scheduled and another study is commissioned (good for consultants!)? Often, the logical, required action is delayed for months (or sometimes years). Sadly, what could have been a bold move preempting the competition becomes a desperate reaction to catch up with the field.

A little Fear and Dread are a part of all decisions, but they really become a problem when dealing with those big, complex, gooey issues that have potential for major impact, either good or bad. You may be facing this type of situation right now; so might your prospects as they mull over your professional services proposals.

Here are three things to do to accelerate important decision making:

1. Realize that Fear and Dread will be a part of any major decision, and consider their impact when building your proposals and communications. Be prepared to speak about that which is not often spoken.
2. Face Fear through risk mitigation. Analyze all the potential bad outcomes of the decision and develop actions to eliminate them. Involve key players in the discussion to talk about options to lessen risks. Just stating the issues up front and demonstrating action will greatly lower the underlying fear level.
3. Lessen the hassle factor. Think through all the potential personal negative impacts on the people making the decision. Plan out steps to lessen their hassles and communicate what will be done to make things easier and less personally burdensome. Give examples where these steps have worked.

Tough decisions are, well, tough! Taking too much time to make them just postpones and prolongs the pain. Address Fear and Dread head on to compress the cycle of decision making. In most all cases, fast is better than slow. Have a need for speed.


* Only the Paranoid Survive. Andrew Grove. Doubleday. 1996.

Tags: leadership, differentiation, selling services

Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Churchill. This very rare club of esteemed folks had the ability to “multi-task” and “multi-produce” at an extraordinary level--doing many (and sometimes quite varied) works simultaneously and doing them all brilliantly.

Alas, most of us aren’t members of this elite club, but because of the “do more with less” movement brought about by downsizing and cost-cutting programs, we find ourselves facing a laundry list of goals, projects, and tasks covering a variety of areas--some we are good at, and some we are not as good at. The predictable outcome is less than stellar work and probably some degree of fatigue, flounder, and frustration. (Hey, you don’t even have time to do the things you are good at well!) So you and the organization may be more “efficient,” but you sure aren’t more effective. Here are three tips to minimize the Flounder Factor:

1. The Rule of Three

The vast majority of people (even really smart people) can hold only three goals, or three issues, or three ideas in their mind at one time. That seems to be the maximum. So when you have a rule that holds up, don’t violate it. Limit your organization’s primary goals, critical issues, and top tasks to three--no more. If you can live by this rule, you will see that life becomes much easier.

Jerry Brown’s presidential campaign understood this concept when they developed his slogan, “Serve the People, Save the Planet, Explore the Universe.” Agree or not with the man or his politics, but at least you’d remember his focus! The Rule of Three is also a maxim of good communication--limit your message to three main points, and your power of persuasion will go up dramatically.

2. Separate the Vital Few from the Useful Many*

Now you may say, "Rule 1 sounds good, but I still have to deal with these 26 KBIs I got from the big boss." We understand that this is reality. However, you do have the power to focus on the few--to concentrate your best efforts on the top three that will have the most impact. Rank your goals and tasks, concentrate on the top three, and determine the absolute minimum effort required to meet the bare minimums of the rest. Delegate as many as you can (in the name of developing your people!), and try just forgetting the least important and see what happens. More often than not, no one cares.

3. Before You Giveth, First Taketh Away

Next, think about your people and your role in helping them become more successful. Before adding one more dipper to their overflowing bucket of work, first think through what can be dumped out to make room. Ask them (no, require them) to rank their tasks in consideration of accomplishing their responsibilities, and eliminate any “nice-to-do” items. They will respect your wisdom, appreciate your consideration, and contribute more to the things that truly matter.


*This phrase comes from Joseph Juran, one of the giants of the quality movement.

Tags: leadership, managing technical talent

A while back I was asked this question: “My professional services organization is thinking of adopting the concept of ‘knock-your-socks-off service.’ Any thoughts on this?”


Well, there is always an exception...here are some socks that deserve to be knocked off!

My response was both fast and direct: “Yes! Don’t do it! Implementing a strategy of ‘knock-your-socks-off service,’ ‘under-promising and over-delivering,’ ‘creating customer delight,’ or whatever you prefer to call it for across-the-board usage is the kiss of death.”

It sounds good--who can stand against great service? But in most cases, when you deliver more than the customer expects, you have wasted resources and made a customer wonder why you are so foolish as to give away services in a highly competitive marketplace. Customers will gladly take additional services, but they won't pay for them. The secret is customer acceptance--clearly defining exact expectations (what they will pay for) and delivering exactly that…no more no less.

With that said, there are two situations when greatly exceeding expectations is warranted. The first is when you have screwed up and service recovery is required. Research shows that fast, no hassle, great service can turn around a bad situation and actually generate customer loyalty. In these situations it is best to jump into the red boots and grab the cape. The second situation is with selected key accounts that you see as critical to your future. Here a planned over-investment makes good strategic sense. Other than these two scenarios, just do what you’ve promised to do and customers will be satisfied and you’ll be more profitable.

Tags: professional services, selling services

Anyone serious about selling services should be constantly looking for ways to improve their productivity. I have just the ticket. It's the Dragon Dictate free app for the iPhone.

I don't know about you, but I hate typing on iPhone's tiny keypad. Thanks to Dictate I no longer have to! All I need now is a relatively quiet area and to speak moderately into the iPhone. It does a great job of capturing my words almost 100%. This improves my ability to communicate at least 400% faster. Now that is a big deal.

Whether you're a seller of services, a services manager or any professional you will gain tremendously by using this handy tool.

Please let me know your thoughts and experiences with other other productivity tools like Dragon, or anything else you found, to make you more successful.

By the way I wrote this through dictation and did not have to touch the keypad at all.

Tags: selling services

Ponder Point: If it were easy, everybody would be doing it.

Let’s face it, for most product companies, getting serious about aggressively building, marketing, and selling services is a big deal—a major change. The troubling truth of the matter is that about three out of four major change efforts fail to achieve and sustain the desired objectives (Alexander, 2004). My own experience in advising organizations confirms this, and your personal experiences probably do as well. Think back over the last few years during times when you experienced the launching of initiatives (e.g., implementing an ERP or CRM system, adapting Six Sigma, going “Lean”). How many of these efforts have brought about the lasting value intended at the time of announcement?

And anyone who has participated in an organizational change effort knows the tension that develops and the resistance that naturally occurs when the people of the organization are asked to behave in new and different ways. Productivity immediately drops as water-cooler conversations (both face-to-face and electronic) speculating on the impact and political ramifications of the change and the always-present “what’s going to happen to me?” take a priority over the mundane tasks of meeting customer requirements. In addition to the obvious loss of focus and efficiency, other multiple “costs of resistance” take their toll, touching everything from loss of key employees to lowered corporate credibility to stifled innovation.